Keeping Cool During the Heat of Finals

By guest blogger Tiana Bouma
Tiana is a senior at University of Oregon double majoring in Political Science and Journalism with a focus in magazine. Her hometown is now Bend, OR but she graduated from high school in Danville, CA. After graduating from UO, she plans on traveling and working for National Geographic. During her spare time, she enjoys music, reading, sports and movies.

Finals are the best and worst parts of the term. On the one hand, it means one day closer to freedom (and summer!), but it also means time catching up and cramming is beginning to dwindle. During spring term when the sun is out, the last thing any of us want to do is sit inside and read through our notes and study guides.

The best thing to do is to create a balance between losing our marbles and having a little bit of fun during some well-earned study breaks.

Take a break and play frisbee with some friends! It'll get your endorphins going and help you study. Photo by Nathan Rupert.

The easy answer to making a little time for yourself during the upcoming finals period are things we do every day that may be taken for granted

Go out for coffee with friends and take it on a walk. A walk around campus, or anywhere really, will help to get the blood flowing and reduce stress. The Vitamin D in sunshine will always help to increase your mood.

When you are studying try to take breaks between subjects and items on your to-do-list. Even a fifteen-minute break from a subject will restart the creative juices and allow your brain to catch a little breathing room in between all of the information.

Frisbee and pick-up basketball are perfect ways to relax from studying and stress while also increasing blood flow. The exercise combined with some friendly competition will release endorphins and give you a natural energy boost that just can’t be replicated by coffee after coffee.

Take some time to just lie in the sun if you aren’t feeling athletically inclined. Just as taking a walk will help give you tons of Vitamin D, so too will relaxing in the sun. The Vitamin D will help with rejuvenating your brain and will also help you to return to studying faster. Just make sure you don’t fall asleep.

Overall, the important thing to remember is that you need to fully close the books and turn off the studying part of your brain while you take a break. Reading a magazine or a novel is still a break as long as your brain isn’t working hard to comprehend the material. Getting out of your chair and moving around will also help to make the break that much more rejuvenating.